What is the very earliest memory you have in your life? (complex, woman)

[coschristi]

Originally Posted by Harpaint

I can't answer for the OP, but I know that many operating rooms in older hospitals have green tile walls and the Drs and nurses wear green sterile clothing (scrubs) and the towels and cloths the sterilized instruments are wrapped in are also green.

Exactly. This was in 1969 in a Military hospital in Japan. Modern day OR's are now white & surgical scrubs & masks are blue. But back then; EVERYTHING was green.

[coschristi]

Originally Posted by UsAll

I agree. And, as part of the BA in Psychology degree I had earned many years ago, we also studied neurobiology/neurosciences and, on my own, I've done enough readings in these areas. What this man claimed doesn't seem to be plausible. Heck, within hours (or even less than hours) of having come out of your mother's womb and being slapped on the backside by medical professionals, you don't even have a mind yet that can form coherent thoughts using the symbolic representation of thoughts which we call "language". That is, you can't even form words or sentences yet to help you organize your thoughts in a graspable, rememberable, retrievable form.

Even if a person (such as this referenced man) never studied neurobiology or the neurosciences at-large, you would think that he (or any other person) should be able to figure out, by common sense alone, that what he was claiming has a very high degree of improbability.

I remember yelling my head off in frustration when the woman said "Hush; this is a hospital! There are sick people here!"

I remember being mad because I thought that was a dumb thing to say to me because I WAS a sick person there.

I also remember being resigned to the fact that I would not be able to tell her this so I resorted to being combative & screaming.

It's not like I was told that this happened; parents are not allowed into the O. R. & anesthesia is administerd to patients IN the Operating Room.

I'm an RN & have worked Surgical. NOW I know why I was being restrained & why the air in the mask burned my throat.

I HAVE to use language in order to answer your question but I don't remember it "in language". I remember it in sight but I can't bring you into my brain for you to view an "instant replay".

Your a human so I have to use the "preferred method of communication for humans" to relate my memory to you.

[Hemlock140]

I can clearly remember my 4th birthday, just 60 years ago. I also have clear memories of kindergarten, including the day before it started when I went to the hospital with a really high fever (missed the first 3 days).

[ItsRick24]

I have some vague memory of being a baby in my crib. I also remember that where we lived at the time, there was a storefront-like office diagonally across the street, upon whose top board said SCREEN GEMS.

[Tracysherm]

I remember my Dad taking me to something in Philly on the hi-speed line train, when my mom was in the hospital, having just given birth to my sister. I had this memory of riding on the train and my Dad pointing to stuff out the window, but only learned years later that this was when I was 2 1/2.


My next memory is walking in my back yard, next to the house, squinting in the bright sun, and thinking "three. I'm three now." My birthday is in the summer so this must have been close to my 3rd birthday.

[JerZ]

I was less than two and a half, but I don't know how much less.

I remember seeing, upward and at an angle, blue and green fish and black lines, "swimming" or rather wafting above me. They were translucent. They were beautiful and I was fascinated with them.

I asked my mother about this at one time, because it's such a clear but quick memory, and she told me I had a blue and green fish mobile, the fish were translucent and the mobile always kept me quiet because I was so fascinated. I moved out of the crib to a "big girl bed" at two and a half and then the mobile came down as my mom revamped my room. That's how I know I was at maximum 2.5.

[Iconographer]

My earliest was my father telling me about the birth of my younger brother; it would have been a few weeks after my third birthday. He put my jacket on and took me to the car. The next was returning home with the baby; I knew something had irrevocably changed in my life.

[Vasily]

Everything before about 4yo is bits and pieces. There are two events that happened very early on that I have corroborated with my late mother so unless she was lying to me they really happened:

A person who it turns out was my great grandmother was visiting us and I was holding onto the folding gate they had put in place to keep me in. My fingernail was nearly torn off and they had to rush me to the doctor. I remember standing at the gate, a blur, then being carried up stairs, then looking around a white room with something red (a fire extinguisher) on the wall, and being placed on a table next to a mirror. I looked at myself in the mirror, and noticed these star shaped pieces of glass holding it on the wall. My mother says I was eighteen months at the time.

My sister was home from the hospital, and I stood over her crib looking down at her wearing my sunglasses to impress her. December sunlight was streaming through the living room drapes. I was asking when I would be able to play with her. I was two years and ten months at the time.

Both were highly emotional events and I suspect that's why they're accessible to me. Other than that, there was a memory of stopping somewhere at night on a long car ride (I think it might have been a motel); I suspect this was during our move to the midwest from the east coast when I was two and a half. All the rest is bits and pieces that might be fuzzy memories or dreams from childhood. There's no sense of a narrative in these memories.

[lovecrowds]

I squeezed a packet of Taco Bell sauce in my eye in 1986, I was 4 years old.

I grabbed the sauce off the tray and squeezed the remaining sauce in my eye.

[leilaniguy]

I remember being in a highchair and Mom giving me a bottle. It was chocolate! I was amazed! That memory comes back every time I smell chocolate.